A pneumatic tire having high-speed durability shown in FIG. 5 is well known, for example. Such a pneumatic tire comprises a belt layer (B) and a band layer (A) disposed radially outside the belt layer (B) and including a band ply (a) formed of a spirally wound organic fiber band cord such as nylon cord and the like. The band layer (A) covers at least an axially outer end B1 of the belt layer (B). FIG. 5 shows the band layer (A) which covers the entire width of the belt layer B. This band layer (A) may prevent a lifting of the belt layer (B) caused by a centrifugal force while the tire is high speed traveling, especially may prevent the lifting at the axially outer end B1 which is a free end. Therefore, this pneumatic tire may reduce strain and heat generation in a tread shoulder portion Ys and may improve high-speed durability.
Moreover, the pneumatic tire may have high circumferentially rigidity in the tread portion due to binding force of the band layer (A). Therefore, this pneumatic tire has an effect of enhancing vibration characteristics.
In recent years, a pneumatic tire which includes a band layer formed of two band plies is proposed. Such a tire may improve vehicle exterior noise such as a pattern noise in addition to the high-speed durability due to high binding force of the band layer.
In order to reduce an internal vehicle noise such as a road noise, Patent documents 1 and 2 propose a pneumatic tire having a circumferentially extending belt-like noise damper made of a sponge material attached to a radially inner surface of a tread portion thereof, for example. This noise damper absorbs a resonance sound energy of columnar resonance generated in a tire cavity and inhibits the columnar resonance causing the road noise so as to reduce the internal vehicle noise.
However, as the result of research, the inventor of the present invention noticed a new problem that the shoulder wear resistance of the tread portion, vehicle exterior noise, or high-speed durability deteriorates when such a noise damper was used for the tire with the band layer (A) of two band plies.